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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23581552">Bottle It Up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng/pseuds/M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng'>M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Actual comfort for once, Awesome Melissa McCall, But still angsty, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Good Parent Melissa McCall, Melissa McCall deserves all the awards, Mentioned Canon Violence, Mentioned canon character deaths, POV Isaac Lahey, because none of these idiots are good at feelings except Melissa, kinda fluffy for me, no violence or death in this fic though, not specific or detailed, on her way to becoming pack mom Melissa McCall, some mention of Isaac's father and the circumstances</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:54:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,040</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23581552</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng/pseuds/M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac works through some issues, prompted by a gift from Mrs. McCall as he settles in to their house. Some things are said that really need to be and he learns a healthy way to bottle things up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale &amp; Isaac Lahey, Isaac Lahey &amp; Isaac Lahey's Father, Isaac Lahey &amp; Melissa McCall, Isaac Lahey &amp; Scott McCall, Isaac Lahey &amp; having a family &amp; dealing with everything that's happened to be honest, Vernon Boyd &amp; Derek Hale &amp; Isaac Lahey &amp; Erica Reyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bottle It Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Dislaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf, its characters, settings, or events; all rights belong to their respective creators.</p>
<p>Warning: the abuse itself is in the past and only ever skirted around here, but Isaac has some very unhealthy thought processes stemming from it. Poor boy needs a hug. And he will get it.</p>
<p>Set after 3x4 "Unleashed" and before 3x5 "Frayed," just a few days after Isaac gets kicked out of the loft.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sound of something thudding to a hard surface and then being slid made Isaac pause in his homework, cocking his head. Glass on wood, he thought; a bottle maybe? On the table in the kitchen. He was about to get back to work when the sound of a drawer opening was followed by the distinctive clatter of a plastic-handled tool landing on the same table and rolling slightly and a prickle of unease crawled down his spine and settled in his gut.</p>
<p>A Project.</p>
<p>His dad had always insisted that a man needed to know how to take care of his own property, how to do basic repairs and maintenance on his house and car and a few other handy skills, so he'd used every opportunity that came up as a chance to teach Isaac life lessons. Isaac had never failed to be a disappointment in some way in every kind of project and he hated it, but bailing was never an option. He was also never supposed to need to be asked to "help."</p>
<p>Isaac forced himself to take in a slow, deep breath as he quickly packed away his homework in steady, precise movements, trying to ignore the way he could feel and hear passing seconds pounding in his pulse.</p>
<p>Breathe out and stand, push in the desk chair.</p>
<p>Breathe in and leave the bedroom, get to the top of the stairs.</p>
<p>And then he hesitated.</p>
<p>He wasn't at home. This house was a lot bigger than his and Mrs. McCall was still pretty new to the whole werewolf thing and Scott was still in his room doing his own homework, so maybe he could pretend he hadn't heard anything, that he didn't know she was working on a project. (<em>Lazy and ungrateful and making pathetic excuses.</em>) Or maybe she was one of those parents who put the emphasis on homework over other things. (<em>Or maybe he was a coward and grasping at straws like an idiot. Even if she was one of those parents, Isaac wasn't her kid.</em>)</p>
<p>Would he be more of an annoyance if he went or didn't?</p>
<p>His thumbnail found his pant seam, running down it until he found a loose thread and tugging pointlessly at it for a second as he wavered at the top of the stairs like the useless wimp he was.</p>
<p>He heard the scrape of Scott's desk chair from behind him, followed by the shuffle-thump of his footsteps as he approached his bedroom door, and tensed even as he felt a wash of relief that he would finally get an answer.</p>
<p>"Isaac," Scott said, eyeing him down the length of the hall. "What's up?" That sounded like suspicion.</p>
<p>Anxiety clutched at Isaac's gut. Derek had drilled into all of them that <em>lone wolves die</em> and then he'd thrown Isaac out and Scott was the only other pack around and Isaac hadn't figured out anywhere else he could go yet, he couldn't afford Scott's suspicion or anger or any of it.</p>
<p>"I was gonna go help your mom," he blurted, jerking a thumb at the stairs. Scott's mom was everything to him; that should be helpful, right?</p>
<p>Scott blinked and tilted his head, eyes going distant as he listened. Isaac had sort of forgotten that Scott was somehow able to turn his enhanced senses off sometimes and might actually not have heard his mom moving around downstairs at all.</p>
<p>"What if I do—Like this. Oh, that's a good idea," Mrs. McCall muttered to herself downstairs. Scott's forehead creased in confusion. "Way to go, Melissa."</p>
<p>"She's working on a project," Isaac added helpfully.</p>
<p>"Oh, yeah," Scott said, face clearing. He studied Isaac for a second with that look on his face that Isaac hadn't figured out yet, then waved a hand dismissively. "Best to leave her to it," he said, sounding absolutely sure. "She likes to do these things on her own, just to prove to herself that she can."</p>
<p>Isaac felt himself frowning a little against his will. That—he didn't want to doubt Scott, and he especially didn't want <em>Scott</em> to think that he was doubting him, and he was sure that Scott knew his own mom, but why would she want to do work herself when she had two teenagers under her roof to do it for her?</p>
<p>Scott caught the frown, but didn't seem upset. "I think it's because of my dad," he said, leaning forward a little and lowering his voice, even though his mom couldn't possibly hear them anyway. Isaac leaned forward a little himself unconsciously. "He was always kind of dismissive of her, I guess. Like, told her she couldn't do stuff and made it seem like she needed him to take care of us. So after he left she got all determined to prove him wrong, even if he'll never know any of it. She just needs to show herself that she can do it."</p>
<p><em>That</em>, Isaac got. He had the same urge sometimes, to prove to himself he could be better than his dad always said; it was a fool's errand, in his case, but he understood the urge. He nodded to Scott, who nodded back and then grinned suddenly and slapped a hand on his door frame.</p>
<p>"Well," he said, "I've got loads of homework to do, so . . ." He made a motion in that direction, then followed it with a step before pausing. "Hey. If I ate my own homework, do you think I could legitimately use the 'my dog ate my homework' excuse?"</p>
<p>Isaac laughed. "I think it might be better if you just did it."</p>
<p>Scott let out a dramatic groan and disappeared through the doorway, leaving Isaac to shake his head at the empty hallway as he turned back to his own homework.</p>
<p>Fifteen minutes later, the subject came up again when Mrs. McCall called for Isaac from the bottom of the stairs. (And he was completely convinced now that she did not in fact know the extent of werewolf senses, because she literally came to the bottom of the stairs and yelled like he couldn't hear her heart beating anywhere within a hundred yards of this house.)</p>
<p>As soon as he reached the top of the stairs and she saw him, before he even started down them, she was already turning and walking further into the kitchen, tossing "Come here" over her shoulder like he was going to do anything else. He hurried after her and into the seat she indicated across the corner of the table from her own, all the while fighting the dread that pounded through his gut and into his bones in time to the remembered pounding of a hammer throughout the last twenty minutes or so. The freezer had been a project, once.</p>
<p>There were two glass jars on the table, set a little to the side of where Isaac and Mrs. McCall were facing each other, one empty except for a folded bill that Isaac thought was a twenty and one full of coins and cash and a few scraps of different kinds of paper, each with a slot in the metal lid. There was a scattering of arts and crafts supplies on the table beyond them. There wasn't anything else in the kitchen that could have been the focus of Mrs. McCall's project, as far as Isaac could tell, and he distinctly remembered the sounds of glass clinking and sliding over the surface of the table, so the jars were probably her project.</p>
<p>"Isaac," she said, drawing his attention from the jars to her, but not continuing.</p>
<p>She looked . . . nervous, maybe? Her hands were folded on the table and she kept smoothing one of her thumbs over them in a repetitive motion. There were little twitches around her eyes like she was thinking something through. It was like she wasn't sure how to say whatever it was she wanted to say, but that didn't make a whole lot of sense because she was the adult here and Isaac was . . . <em>Isaac</em>. Besides, Mrs. McCall had been really nice so far, so how bad could—</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>A sudden, terrible thought turned him cold.</p>
<p>Mrs. McCall was <em>really</em> nice, so if she had to give bad news to somebody, she'd probably look . . . well, about how she looked now.</p>
<p>He glanced at the jars again, at the money, and was struck by how stupid he was. Of course she had bad news. Mrs. McCall was a single mom raising a teenage werewolf, there was no way she could afford another mouth to feed; Isaac had hoped, from the size and quality of their house, that they were actually richer than Scott's social status at school suggested, but from what he'd seen and heard the past few days, that was not the case. They were barely getting by as it was and Isaac was a burden.</p>
<p>"I could get a job," he blurted. Maybe if he was less of a burden, he could stay. "I had one before, and with my dad gone I'm the only one with experience there, so they'd probably take me back, and graveyards are big business in town these days." He offered a weak smile at the half-joke, scrambling for other arguments, but Mrs. McCall reached one hand out, palm flat on the table, and he subsided. His fingers twitched on the sides of his chair in futility.</p>
<p>"If you think you can handle a job on top of school and all the supernatural stuff you kids are dealing with," she said skeptically.</p>
<p>Isaac's heart sank. He'd hoped he'd made a better impression on her than that, but maybe nothing could erase the pathetic picture of being wheeled into the emergency room or showing up late at night completely drenched and with nowhere else to go. "I can handle it," he promised, an edge of anger and bitterness in his voice. "I did it before."</p>
<p>Deceptively mild, she asked, "And your grades didn't suffer at all?"</p>
<p>Isaac's face turned hot and cold at the same time. "I can handle it," he insisted defensively. It wasn't really his fault that he was an idiot, was it? He did alright in school, considering. Didn't he?</p>
<p>But if grades were that important to her, he'd have to do better, which, for him, meant something else would have to give. He glanced at the jars again, feeling caught, but his attention was immediately drawn back to Mrs. McCall when her heart skipped a beat and her scent flooded with sadness and anger. He fought the urge to hunch his shoulders, to bring his elbows up to the table and bury his head in his hands.</p>
<p>"Isaac," Mrs. McCall said, leaning forward with that same look on her face that Scott got sometimes, "you don't have to get a job to stay here. It's fine. It's not possible for everyone to maintain a regular job and defend the town against kanimas and alpha werewolves at the same time, let alone also keep up at school; between you and me, I'm pretty sure the only reason Scott still has his job is because his boss knows about all of this." Reflexively, Isaac glanced upward, but either Scott wasn't bothered or he was ignoring his senses because the sounds of him muttering his way through his homework didn't miss a beat. "Point is," Mrs. McCall continued, apparently unbothered or unaware that Scott might hear, "you might not be able to keep all those balls in the air if you got a job and I get that and it's not a problem. You're welcome here regardless."</p>
<p>She paused, maybe waiting for an answer, some sign of understanding at least, but Isaac had no idea how to respond to that. He was a hundred percent sure that if his dad had still been alive and had known about all the werewolf stuff, that he would have expected him to keep his job and get good grades and work around the house <em>and</em> do werewolf stuff, that he maybe would have expected him to do even more on account of being a werewolf, all without costing more to feed and clothe, and that he would have been absolutely furious if Isaac had dropped the ball on <em>any</em> of it, even by a little. Isaac had been punished his whole life for not doing enough and here was Mrs. McCall, a virtual stranger, offering to house him and feed him for nothing in return, like it was the simplest thing in the world and perfectly practical.</p>
<p>"Anyway," Mrs. McCall said suddenly with a little slap on the table as she drew back in her seat. Isaac failed to restrain a light flinch. "That's not why I called you down here."</p>
<p>"Sorry," Isaac offered, still a little dazed.</p>
<p>Mrs. McCall waved him away as she slid the mostly empty jar in front of him and took the other one in both hands, spinning it slowly around and examining it critically.</p>
<p>"Someone once told me," she began, eyes on the jar in her hands, "that I have a bad habit of bottling up negative emotions until eventually they get too much and the dam breaks and I lose it a little." She glanced up at him with a wry little smile and he realized he liked her; not just as Scott's mom or as someone who had been sorta nice to him before, but as a whole person. He didn't have a lot of those. "I don't know how, exactly, but somehow my brain got very literal about it and this idea popped into my head, a way to take all those negative emotions out of my head and turn them into something good. I call it my Rafe jar, 'cause I was pretty newly divorced at the time and he was the root of most of those negative emotions." She laughed, but Isaac felt a twitch of violence in his chest. He had no idea what had happened with Scott's dad, but he knew that there didn't seem to be good memories of him hanging around and the possibilities of what might have happened left his claws itching.</p>
<p>"So here's how The Jar works. Every time I remember something that he did or said that made me angry or hurt or upset, every time I think about how he made me feel, every time I do or think something that can be traced back to him like a symptom, every time I get the random urge to punch him in the face, every time he does something else, every time Scott—" She cut herself off, which was probably for the best, because Isaac was getting tenser with every example and at this point his claws were gouging into the underside of the chair and he was at risk of breaking it. He consciously retracted his claws and flexed his fingers as she continued. "Basically, every time I have any negative emotion about or because of him, I put money in the jar. Every time Scott has a negative emotion about his dad on my behalf, he puts money in the jar. When my mom visits and she gets worked up about it, she puts money in the jar; she routinely sends me twenty dollars for the jar every year on the anniversary of my divorce. The Sheriff has occasionally put money in my jar. Understand?"</p>
<p>Isaac nodded and almost asked for examples of <em>why</em> everybody was so mad at Scott's dad, but Mrs. McCall wanted to talk about the jars right now, so he put that aside for later.</p>
<p>"And then comes the good part," she said with a grin. "When there's enough in the jar or when I need it or however it shakes out, but at some point, I take the money out and I just blow it. Always on a treat for myself and usually on something that I know Rafe would disapprove of. Like this one time—" She opened the jar and started digging things out, searching for something as she talked. "Rafe always had this thing about hair salons, always said they were such a waste of money because they charged so much for something any idiot could do at home with a pair of scissors and a box of hair dye, which he's not <em>entirely</em> wrong about because some places really do charge ridiculous prices and they're not that much better than the cheaper places, but which he <em>is</em> wrong about because any idiot with scissors can make your hair look <em>awful</em> and there is definitely a difference with someone who knows what they're doing and everybody likes to look good, you know? It's not a <em>crime</em>." She shook her head. "Anyway. So this one time, about a year and a half, two years after the divorce?" She got distracted for a second by something at the bottom of the jar, then pulled loose what looked like a photo with an exclamation of triumph. She set the picture aside, face down, and began to refill the jar. "So I took the money from the jar to a hair salon." She grinned up at Isaac, this wicked little grin that he hadn't expected. He found himself smiling back. "Not the cheap one at the strip mall that I sometimes go to, this time I went to the really expensive one at the indoor mall downtown. And I didn't just get my hair <em>cut</em>, oh no, I got a fancy cut with layers, I got an expensive set of subtle highlights and lowlights, I paid money to have my hair shampooed, conditioned, <em>and</em> styled. I went all out. It was ridiculously expensive and totally not worth what they charged, but the <em>satisfaction</em> of it . . ." She leaned back in her chair, looking perfectly satisfied right that moment. "There's no price tag on that," she finished softly.</p>
<p>After a second, she pulled herself from the memory, reaching for the photo. "Had them take a picture and when I got home there was nothing else I could do with it really, but put it in the jar, which started a whole other tradition." She handed him the photo to look at, while she fished a couple of loose scraps of paper back out of the jar. "Every time I spend money from the jar, I write down what I spent it on, and sometimes the amount, and I put the note in the jar, so that every time I go into it or even just see it in the cabinet, I remember all the good things I did with the money from all the negative emotions I bottled up. This one—" She held up a scrap of paper for Isaac to see. A movie ticket stub maybe? "I took myself to dinner and a movie. Rafe hated going to the movies, when we could just watch something at home, but I like the whole mood of it. This one—" Isaac couldn't tell what it had been originally. "Manicure and pedicure. This one was a full body massage. This one—" A crumpled receipt this time. "—was this whole series of romance novels that I really liked; I bought them all instead of just borrowing them from the library. They're upstairs, if you like that sort of thing." She sighed softly, looking down at all her notes. Isaac offered her the picture back and she smiled at him.</p>
<p>"So that's the story of the Rafe jar," she said. "Now onto today's topic." She reached out and nudged the jar in front of Isaac with a finger, then turned her attention to getting everything back in her jar.</p>
<p>Isaac picked up the mostly empty jar, confirming that it was indeed a twenty-dollar bill folded up on the bottom (the bills in the other jar had been mostly ones) before he turned it around to where there was a piece of white masking tape stuck to the side.</p>
<p>It had his name on it.</p>
<p>His heart dropped and his fingers and toes started tingling and his eyes started to burn and his chest squeezed. "You have an Isaac jar now too?" He was glad his voice came out level, sounding amused in a dark way instead of like he'd been punched in the gut, but he wished he could look away from the stupid jar. "And there's already twenty dollars in it after only a few days." He forced a smile on his face, rolled his shoulders back, and managed to look up in the general direction of Mrs. McCall's face. "I must be on a roll."</p>
<p>Mrs. McCall gave him a shrewd look that told him she didn't buy his act for a second. "<em>You</em> have a jar," she clarified, "for your father." He looked up sharply and she met his eyes with a serious look. "Rules of The Jar are simple. One, you and the people who care about you put money in every time there is a negative emotion about your father. You are not allowed to question the money other people put in; they are allowed to feel what they feel and determine how much money that equates to. Two, the money is to be spent on a treat for yourself. A treat means something nice that you wouldn't normally spend money on and yourself means only you. No spending it on necessities or something for someone else. Three is less a rule and more a guideline or a suggestion: spend it on something he would hate, because that is a treat for you."</p>
<p>"Mrs. McCall," Isaac began cautiously.</p>
<p>"Melissa," she corrected.</p>
<p>He ignored her. "I can't take your money."</p>
<p>"You're not taking my money, you're helping me channel my negative emotions into positive outcomes. It's healthy." She grinned, sly and unrepentant.</p>
<p>Isaac's chest squeezed, but it wasn't quite panic. "You're already letting me live here."</p>
<p>"The Jar is sacred and separate from everything else. Nothing else has any bearing on The Jar except emotions. The Jar has no bearing on anything except emotions."</p>
<p>"Mrs. McCall—"</p>
<p>"Melissa. Isaac, stop arguing. You have a jar. There's no going back now."</p>
<p>Isaac started to argue further, but gave up. "I have a Dad jar," he said instead, picking it up and looking at it like he was seeing it for the first time.</p>
<p>"Yep," Mrs. McCall said.</p>
<p>"Twenty dollars?" Isaac asked.</p>
<p>Her face went hard. "Twenty dollars." Then she shrugged, "It's a start."</p>
<hr/>
<p>She'd offered Isaac the opportunity to decorate—<em>"</em><em>personalize"</em>—the jar if he wanted to, but he had already been overwhelmed and had had no idea what to do with it, so had declined, pointing out that she hadn't done anything to personalize her own jar, which she said was because she liked seeing the money and notes through the glass.</p>
<p>She showed him the slot in the lid and very proudly told him that she'd done that herself and look how nice it had turned out this time, much better than the first time she tried it. Comparing the two jars, he had to agree; while the lid of her jar had an irregular hole punched out of it, the lid of . . . his had been cut open and then the metal folded back and tapped as flat as possible against the underside of the lid. That wasn't right, because Mrs. Melissa was nice and not a werewolf and the hole punched in the top of her jar looked like it would cut her if she got too close. He tried to switch the two, but she said she was attached already because "she'd already given it plenty of blood;" he'd have to find a way to switch it in secret, he decided—it would be pretty obvious that it was him, but he thought she might let it go if she couldn't "prove" it was him.</p>
<p>She wouldn't let him help clean up the craft supplies, either, so he just sat at the table staring at the jar and the twenty dollars inside, lost in his own thoughts while she bustled around. He barely even noticed when she started dinner, but she noticed instantly when he started to get up from his seat to help and stared him firmly down.</p>
<p>He missed his dad fiercely, then, missed being useful. Missed working side-by-side and <em>knowing</em> each other so thoroughly.</p>
<p>"Does grief count?" he wondered out loud, quiet.</p>
<p>Mrs. Melissa hummed in question.</p>
<p>"For the jar." He held it up like an idiot. "For the—Does grief count? Is that—? It's a negative emotion, right. And . . ."</p>
<p>"Of course it counts, honey," Mrs. Melissa said softly. "Whatever you want to count, counts. It's your jar."</p>
<p>He picked absently at the tape with his name on it with a thumbnail.</p>
<p>After a second, Mrs. Melissa came over, sliding into the chair she'd left pulled out from the table and putting a hand lightly on his wrist to get his attention. When he looked up, she was looking down at the jar, a soft frown on her face. "I know I mostly mentioned anger, because anger is the easiest to talk about, but I did mean <em>any</em> negative emotion. I grieve for Rafe sometimes, too. I grieve for what we could have been, what we <em>should</em> have been. I grieve for Scott having to grow up without a father, thinking that he wasn't loved. I grieve for the Melissa that used to be. I grieve for Rafe, because he's an idiot and he brought it on himself, but he's not happy and I loved him once. Part of me will always love him."</p>
<p>She squeezed his wrist lightly, and started rubbing a thumb back and forth over the skin there. "Isaac, it's okay to grieve. It's okay to be angry, at him or at the world or at Matt, or confused or sad or anything. How you feel is how you feel and no one else needs to understand it in order for it to be alright. He was your dad, and you loved him, didn't you?" Isaac nodded, fighting back the sudden urge to sob because <em>no one</em> had recognized that before. "Oh, sweetie." Mrs. Melissa reached out with her free hand, then paused. "I'm gonna hug you, okay?"</p>
<p>She stood and did just that, coming around the corner of the table and pulling him into her, running a hand through his hair and down his back. "It's okay to grieve the people you love, Isaac. It's okay." And then he did sob, like a baby, but she didn't stop running a hand through his hair and telling him over and over that it was okay.</p>
<p>When he finally stopped crying and she pulled away (with a kiss to his hair that she didn't even seem to realize), she rushed over to check on dinner and he had a moment of panic that something had been burnt because of him. It wasn't, but she was running behind, so she let him help.</p>
<hr/>
<p>"Scott," Mrs. Melissa bellowed from the bottom of the stairs. Isaac cringed and fought the urge to cover his ears. "Dinner!"</p>
<p>Even over the slight ringing caused by her shouting, Isaac could tell that Scott's desk chair immediately scraped across the floor and his footsteps pounded a little louder than normal in his haste to get downstairs.</p>
<p>"Teenage boys and their food," Mrs. Melissa laughed, sharing the joke with Isaac with a look. She looked around the kitchen one more time, probably to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything, and he saw the moment her eyes caught on the jar he'd left on the counter when he set the table.</p>
<p>"I can take it somewhere else," he offered quickly, stepping closer and reaching for it. "I just set it there for a minute and I haven't been upstairs yet."</p>
<p>"It's fine, Isaac," she said, a hand raised to stop him. Scott appeared behind her. "You can leave it wherever you want. Maybe you'd want to put it in the cabinet next to mine?"</p>
<p>Oh. Of course. There was going to be money in it, of course she'd want to keep an eye—</p>
<p>"That way anyone who wants to put money in can access it easily. And you don't have to look at it all the time, if that gets too much."</p>
<p>"I can leave it here," Isaac agreed.</p>
<p>Her eyes narrowed. "If that's what you want," she said pointedly.</p>
<p>Scott came around his mom then, kissing her on the cheek and breaking the weird tension in the air. "Isaac has a jar?" he asked. He didn't seem upset, but Isaac's instincts urged him to back up just in case and he tensed as Scott brushed past him to get to the table.</p>
<p>"I thought it was high time," Mrs. Melissa said, also going to the table. "Stop eating with your fingers and wait for the rest of us."</p>
<p>"Does it cover Derek, too, or just his dad?" Scott wanted to know, loading his plate full. Isaac shuffled into the chair he'd been in before. "'Cause Derek is a jerk and unfortunately Isaac's alpha, so Isaac should get something for him, too."</p>
<p>"He's not a jerk," Isaac argued reflexively, sharper than he meant to. Scott raised an eyebrow and Isaac subsided a little, curling in. But he had to insist, "He's not."</p>
<p>"He kicked you out like two days ago," Scott pointed out, an edge to his voice.</p>
<p>"He doesn't have a responsibility to house me," Isaac countered, levelly.</p>
<p>"Yes, he does!" Scott said, voice rising. "He's your alpha; he's supposed to look out for you. Not send you packing late at night with no warning and nowhere else to go!"</p>
<p>Isaac could feel the anger thrumming under his skin and his voice rose to match Scott's. "He's my alpha <em>because</em> he looked out for me! He saved my life!"</p>
<p>"He put you in danger! He's the reason you're involved in all this!"</p>
<p>"I was in danger long before Derek showed up!" Isaac spat, venomous. "And he's the <em>only</em> one who ever actually did anything!" He pulled back at the kicked puppy look on Scott's face, taking a deep breath to rein himself in. "Derek makes choices I don't understand sometimes, and, okay, he's kind of a jerk sometimes," he allowed, "but he's a good man and he's doing his best to help."</p>
<p>Scott's expression soured and he opened his mouth to continue arguing, but his mom cut in before he could get a word out. "And that's enough of that. Eat, boys."</p>
<p>"Maybe I should get a Derek jar, then," Scott muttered after a minute, still angry.</p>
<p>"Enough!" Mrs. Melissa demanded.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Isaac heard him before he smelled him, probably, he remembered from Mr. Argent's hasty lessons, because he was coming from downwind. He froze on the steps, listening more carefully, as soon as he realized that it wasn't just a random person out in the night, but someone coming directly towards the house, just to be sure he wasn't wrong. When the side porch creaked, Isaac shifted and crept as quietly as possible through the dark. He was halfway across the kitchen when the person on the other side knocked softly.</p>
<p>Isaac froze again, confused by the action.</p>
<p>And then the smell hit him and he shifted back in surprise.</p>
<p>Derek. Who'd knocked rather than tear the doorknob off because he'd heard Isaac approaching on the other side.</p>
<p>Isaac's first instinct was to let him in, to obey the unspoken order in the knock, but he hesitated because this wasn't his house and Scott clearly had issues with Derek still and might not appreciate Isaac letting him in in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>"Isaac," Derek said, low and firm, from right outside the door. Isaac was already moving before he'd even processed the thought.</p>
<p>He swallowed as he opened the door to reveal Derek, moving without conscious thought again to block the opening with his body. Derek raised an eyebrow. "I don't think I should let you in," Isaac said cautiously. "Scott doesn't want you here and I can't afford to get kicked out."</p>
<p>Something flickered across Derek's face briefly. "I heard," he said. Sensing Isaac's confusion, he clarified after a minute, "I heard what he said about me at dinner."</p>
<p>Isaac's hand tightened on the door knob. "I'm sorry," he offered.</p>
<p>Derek shook his head once in dismissal. "Heard what you said, too."</p>
<p>He studied Isaac critically for a long minute while Isaac just stood there and tried not to fidget.</p>
<p>"Why are you here?" Isaac burst out finally.</p>
<p>Derek withdrew a hand from one of the pockets of his jacket and held it up, folded bills between two fingers. "Because he's right."</p>
<p>Isaac shook his head in disagreement reflexively, but didn't voice his argument out loud.</p>
<p>Derek huffed a little, one side of his mouth quirking up just a little in a tiny, wry grin. "I'm sorry that I couldn't let you stay at the loft, but Scott's right—you deserve better than just leaving you with nowhere to go, Isaac. That's—I wish I'd handled that better. I wish I'd handled a lot of things better."</p>
<p>"That's—" Isaac scrambled for words for a minute before settling on, "You did fine. You have a lot on your plate. I get it. You shouldn't have to worry about me on top of—"</p>
<p>"Erica is dead," Derek said bluntly. Isaac's chest squeezed and he smelled Derek's grief mingling with his own. He smelled Derek's guilt, too, even though Erica and Boyd had run off and gotten <em>themselves</em> captured and Erica had <em>chosen</em> to die rather than suffer more; that was why Isaac knew Scott was wrong and Derek was a good alpha. "And Boyd is—He won't talk about it, but he's not okay. You're—I turned the three of you, Isaac. I led three teenagers into a war. I'm <em>responsible</em>—"</p>
<p>Isaac snatched the money out of Derek's hand, because he didn't know how else to stop him talking, and unfolded it. "Three hundred dollars?" he asked incredulously. He'd swear Derek blushed. "For what, saving my life? Giving me a choice in my future?"</p>
<p>"Dragging you into a war. Getting you tortured and then making you undergo painful procedures to try to bring your memories back. Getting you accused of murder."</p>
<p>Isaac scoffed. "I would have been accused anyway. I was the only decent suspect right away."</p>
<p>"Kicking you out with nowhere to go," Derek said, a little louder and more forcefully.</p>
<p>"You mean caring about your family?"</p>
<p>"Isaac."</p>
<p>"I get it, Derek. I mean, I didn't right away, but . . . If my dad came back from the dead—" He shook off the thought and held out the money. "I don't have a Derek jar," he said firmly.</p>
<p>"Isaac." Derek sighed, and pushed Isaac's hand with the money back towards him. "You should." Isaac started to disagree and Derek squeezed his hand and said a little louder. "<em>But</em> it isn't just for that. It's . . . backpay. It's for your jar for your dad or for your living expenses going forward or whatever you want it to be, just . . . Let me be your alpha."</p>
<p>Isaac couldn't argue with that, so he just nodded in resignation, eyes on where Derek's hand was still wrapped around his.</p>
<p>Derek squeezed again. "If you ever need anything, I'm still your alpha. Good night, Isaac."</p>
<p>As he turned to go, Isaac called out. "Derek?" Derek half-turned back. "Thanks. For everything."</p>
<p>Derek turned to go again without a word.</p>
<p>"And Derek?" Isaac called again, suddenly bold. Derek suppressed a sigh, but Isaac was sure he rolled his eyes where he was still facing away. "Maybe you need a jar, for, um—" His courage almost gave out. "—for Kate. And Gerard." He grinned a little. "And Scott."</p>
<p>Derek snorted. And then he was gone.</p>
<p>And Isaac was okay with that.</p>
<p>Mrs. Melissa was right. It helped to not bottle things up.</p>
<p>Three hundred and twenty dollars worth of people caring about him didn't hurt either.</p>
<p>Now he needed to see if he could just switch the lids on those jars or if he had to switch the jars themselves.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was supposed to be just the one little scene, just a vignette, really, but then it decided, no, it was gonna have about 5,500 more words of healing and character and relationship analysis.</p>
<p>Anyway, Isaac has a family that loves him, even if it's taking him a bit to settle into that realization, so that's the main thing.</p>
<p>As always, comments, critiques, and constructive criticism are more than welcome. Thanks for reading!</p>
<p>Have a beautiful day!</p>
<p>M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng</p></blockquote></div></div>
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